As an advocate for TV journalists over the last decade, I have been watching a new reality form in the broadcast industry. A reality you need to know about, in clear terms to protect your interests as you grow your career, and frankly try to survive TV news. Its time for candidates to align together more, to help everyone make more money.
As the broadcasting industry has grappled with how to modernize and be profitable in the digital age, it has greatly changed the way it recruits for strong candidates. Some of the changes are a good thing. More groups consolidated and realized they needed to centralize recruiting. That’s why if you look at LinkedIn most of the talent acquisition leads and recruiters you see from broadcasting groups have been at it for up to 10 years. No more. The jobs were not really around before, for news people. News Directors and AND’s bore the brunt of recruiting. Once the push began to increase digital imprint, digital products and frankly try and find out how to even make money in the digital arena, these news managers needed help. Too much to do, too little time to do it. Hence all these “recruiters” reaching out to you that you had not heard of before.
Many companies have done this “heavy lifting recruiting” wisely by also setting up targeted screening, to help weed out people who are not serious about being journalists. There are more ethics tests (YES YES YES) and targeted writing tests. Veteran journalists saw this happen before. In fact there is a set of ethics tests most of us had to take get jobs 15 to 20 years ago. Again a good thing.
Centralizing a lot of the recruiting, can also mean a few not so good things for the candidate pool.
Job Candidate Realities
Blow 1 interview may not get opportunities
More ghosting
Anti agent pushes
Less wiggle room on pay ranges
If you are wanting to put yourself out there and see what kind of job you can get, you HAVE to go through interviews with talent acquisition in most broadcasting groups. The ones that do not have full time recruiters, are outsourcing with headhunter type agencies. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you nail the interviews with these talent acquisition experts. Many of whom, do not have a news background. Again, some companies are working around that by creating sets of journalistic questions and targeted writing tests. The reality is though, there are specific things a candidate will ask about in terms of day to day responsibilities and support systems that you may not be able to get answers to easily in the interview process. While asking some of those questions, you might be miss read, and end up with a “meh” review by the recruiter. That can close a lot of doors.
If you have a bad day, and blow the interview with the recruiter, that person weighs in on your prospects with other jobs at that group as well. You need to know this, and not act like the interview with the recruiter is not really that important.
There also is a lot more frustration for candidates because ghosting is getting almost epidemic in the industry. A lot of it, isn’t even intentional. There is confusion over who’s responsibility it is to keep up with the candidate and let the finalists know they did not get the job. Most groups are great about the early weeding process. If you did not make the first cut you will likely know. But if you get to a finalist stage, it can be very stressful when suddenly it all goes cold. Asking too much about what’s going on, could also hurt your reputation. Asking at all can even get confusing. Who do you contact, the recruiter or the news director?
Then there is a growing sentiment, once offers are about to be administered to pressure candidates with agents not to use them. You need to know this, because you need to understand why. This business is at a tipping point. When large companies try and prevent an important level of advocacy it is not to help the candidates have more fulfilling careers. It just isn’t. The biggest reason this is happening, is honestly to keep the train steamrolling down the track. The companies have drawn out the process to fill the openings with this centralized recruiting in some ways. Many companies don’t want to add a layer of who talks with the agent.
Another reason is a little less innocent. Many broadcasting groups are mandating pay ranges more at the corporate level than before. Read that line again, News managers are getting less flexibility over what they can offer in terms of pay, and how they spend their salary budgets. This is a big reason why you are not seeing higher pay for producers and MMJ’s especially. It takes a long time for companies to understand the wages are not sustainable for candidates when salary ranges are this centralized.
This needs to be crystal clear: The media expert groups you are seeing all over LinkedIn telling you they “represent you for free” or to sign up for “as low as 5 dollars a month” are usually paid by the broadcasting groups to fill jobs. They have to find candidates at or UNDER the pay range allowed by companies. So when you are asked for salary ranges, you can set yourself up for less pay. The role of that group is to fill vacancies, and get paid by the companies for making the connection.
These groups can be helpful in terms of finding openings. So if you sign up, counter this by telling those groups, you do not want to fill in an estimated salary expectation. If that is a condition upon being listed, say you will only accept higher end wages, even if they tell you to lower expectations. Whatever they recommend to ask for, add a little more money to your accepted range. Candidates need to push these groups to say, the only way these jobs are going to be filled is if you increase the salary range. They CAN advocate if pushed and some do a little bit. If you make more they will also. But this is key: If you just agree to the range they suggest, this helps companies keep pay down. In fact, this is part of the reason why pay increases are slowing down. Even if these companies say they advocate for you, remember if you are not paying them, companies are. If the majority of candidates use that knowledge to push for a little more than the usual “going rate” the pay ranges will need to be adjusted at the broadcasting group level. It helps these groups pressure companies to increase pay ranges also.
So what else is a job candidate to do? Get training on how to advocate for yourself. If you do have an agent, hold your ground and insist that the job offer goes to your agent first before you accept any position. The intimidation can seem scary, but remember, it is not in your best interest to leave your agent out of the process. If you are being told to leave out your agent, that should make you think, “What does the group not want me to get?” Often its higher pay. It also sets up conditions where if you are treated badly later, the company has to answer for it more. With the way work conditions are, you need to think hard about this. The companies offering to “represent you for free” or a few dollars a month will not help if you end up in miserable conditions. In fact, they don’t try to prevent that at all. It’s not their goal. Agents keep track of which companies treat employees best. Then they warn the companies being unfair to clean up their act. So keep that level of advocacy in mind.
Lastly, aim high on the salary when you get to the final stages. If you do not get the money right away, you won’t get it at all at that job. Never forget that. Even promotions have set “budget limits” if you are at the station or in company already. Get training on how to tell when you hit the right number. There are tell tale signs.
TV news journalists have to get bold NOW about what is needed in terms of pay, and hold firm. These companies will continue to stick with low pay limits if candidates keep settling for less money. You need to have realistic ranges, but you need to stick to the high end of those and not settle. Time to work together to force broadcasting groups to increase pay ranges. No matter if you go it alone, with a headhunting agency or with an agent. Every type of job seeker needs to work together to push for more money. The timing is right, because broadcasting groups see that there are so few candidates for nearly every position now. So seize the moment, and demand more money to take the job offer.
